Put On The Shelf
by Liz M. J
Summary: The muggle side of a character's life: a shot. Dirty, wrong, coarse, bad.


PUT ON THE SHELF

_Drugs. _  
>I remember the first time I was down to get with that. The internet freedom was to be conceived, and me and my other guys were all the day crumbling around the streets in town, avoiding, mocking, harassing and yelling at the young ladies. We were probably in what you call full teenage. 16.<p>

However: our town wasn't that big. It allowed, placed and employed less than 1.500 people. Me, and my family, were in the residential borough: no politics, no questions, no church, say yes to the priest, to the policemen, to dad (and to the officer, from 18 to 19, in the army). No. No discos, no nights, no highways, no libraries, no university, no music, no parties, no _communists_ or _fascists_ or way so.

NO; there were, a few newborn neofascist-like associations: they went around the whole day like us, the only two differences were the money and the hiding. They always got money. And they avoided us, like we were leeches. Every two or three hours they disappeared in a door's black hole, or placed the 'liquid sun' behind their backs and walked through the city in the shadowy realms of the industrial village.

To do what? No one asked them. They hated us. They despised us. They _realized_ that we were humans like them, they didn't think "oh this piece of crap right in front of me"; that's what made them spiteful. You thought they could spite venom; this wasn't. That was, more, like a - 'liquid sun' we called it. A liquid sun, something gushing, really hot, too hot, too – _sticky_, wreathing. Yet glowing like it had a whole nuclear reaction inside it. Oh, when we were younger, and we thought the sun's fire soared out from a spark and coal, like all the other fires we ever saw. NO, it was nuclear – nuclear reaction cycle, fusion and fission: you'd call it yin and yang. In our city the world out of Britain didn't even exist. Yet. I hope.

I left that place seven years ago. After the crumbling of whatever I believed my family could have been. A COULD-HAVE-BEEN. A failure.

Luckily,when my parents began to show their complete carelessness about me and my brother, me and my brother knew _those few guys_ – _those_ who came to talk with the fascists and stayed around in town for those summer months.

They seem to know someone on the place – always mocking around two people; a guy and a girl.

I remember the guy, I saw him at the elementary school. Then he nearly disappeared, as we were eleven. I always knew his parents were worse than mines – in a sense: his father and mother wronged _ways _and _words_, but _talked_ to each other and to himself. My parents stopped as I was 3. Just going on, along, surviving.

This guy, we called him Shelf. He was always put on the shelf – no one even watched him. He had some name, but it wasn't _normal_, so we forgot it.

I remember a Christmas he came back from that far away college, with a broken face bone; actually I think the cheek bone. It wasn't fresh though. He always kept his hair quite long, almost touching shoulder. I, however, kept mine longer; or well, I did. Before a _certain_ summer. Well, the bruise had nearly all disappeared, but you could clearly see a scar on that cheek – I SWEAR I saw that scar. Two evenings later that scar evaporated. I saw it, at 7 o'clock, in full sunset, shining in reflecting the 'liquid sun' (this guy looked like he always had a large bug of liquid sun stuck on the head). And – well – I go back home to have a spit of dinner, and when I came back, he was always there – WITHOUT IT.

Jesus, I hated him. But I was afraid even to talk without being questioned. So I shut up. The fascists were angry about something. 'The hell was going on? There were rumors. The brother, the sister, someone, of someone, did - WHAT? – the BROTHER of one and the BROTHER of the other? Wait, doesn't a thing miss here? A Hole. But…? But? Ooooh. Crap.

It seems that one of the city visitors had just put out a plan with the brother of one of the fascists – ok, I'm speaking plain English.

This all happened in the summer holidays of I-don't-remember-the-year. I was 16, I said. The guy of the elementary school, Shelf, came back from his college; his parents started yelling at each other the same moment he arrived. Of course, _willingly_. And he was not so stupid to not get it by himself. So their quarreling was all a home-theatre, put up to show him which of his parents was the strongest of the two. But this time they yelled at him, too; it was _strange_. Something about a _letter_, a _work_, a _minister_, a "_he could be useful" _and "_c'mon, you're not princess California"_ (I never understood this sentence). So the guy began to walk around all the day, _out_ of his house, so _between _us. I saw many other bruises around his neck.

Ok, one gone: then came the _others_. _Others _dressed like they never saw another person wearing a longsleeve, or a t-shirt and jeans, or whatever; they all looked like – uhm … - _homeless_. They wore T-shirts, and jeans and whatever normal, but it seemed they didn't know _how to _wear normal clothes. They looked for something - who knew what; they soon began to hang out with _the fascists –_and we had heard rumors, that in a nearby city our _fascists_ had beaten a guy nearly to death. However, the police of that town wasn't inquiring on _our fascists_; they thought of a smugglers' war. Smuggling what? Weapons, here? Alcohol, cigarettes? "No, no, leave it. You're too young. Just hang out of those guys' reach. Keep yourself safe" told me my brother. Cool, I thought, you're leaving on vacation with your _girlfriend _(I somewhat thought that having a girlfriend was _such _a girlish thing). I'm staying here to face problems. Cool. Burning cool, my dear. You'll see.

However. These _others_, the _strange _ones, grouped with the _fascists_ and we scarcely heard them talking of politics. They were always talking about numbers, numbers of things. Such a numb subject. We noticed that the fascists, since a pair of weeks, had begun to act in a completely different way: with such a bursting out, uttered, _euphoric_ behaviour… Few days later, I myself would have known clearly what it was; to just say that this will break my life…or well _crack_ it. These _strange_ guys always looked _behind _us; they were always looking around to see where were certain people, they always lurked on the same ones. And _Shelf_ was their favourite. I noticed _new _bruises. New broken bones – always healing in few days.

I've never been that intelligent. I never asked questions. I accepted truth, and thought that the less I did in it (whatever it was) the best it could be. I wasn't wrong; but I didn't apply this philosophy to everything. _Something_ failed. Something slipped. _Something_, I wronged something. Later. Come back to our Shelf: he's being harassed and muggered by his schoolmates, whose fascist friends just began _looking at us like the others did. _Like preys.

The one day I remember is: we planning to go to the "beach", the open _sewe_river running behind the industrial village; I ask him to come along. He plainly insults me. I don't remember the words. I only remember I excused myself. And I just added "Avoid doing this with the black-dressed ones. They'll beat the hell out of you." And I couldn't stop, I added "Too." He looks straight in my eyes, pauses, reflects, a pair of blinks I clearly see in _his _eyes and then: "Ok, I'm coming. But you and me. Alone. Have you seen any of those _strange guys?_" Who's not strange in a town that's completely normally wrong? "No, I didn't. Why? Aren't they your schoolmates?" What a disgusted face. What _a distaste_. He simply says, "NO" Then we go.

"But you didn't bring a costume?" "I got it under…" He goes around with a swimming costume under clothes? It's not so hot here, but the air is sticky of the chemical compounds' dust rising up from the industries. There is such a smell of – tar, cement, gasoline, burnt plastic. _He must sweat plastic. _I laughed. He didn't. I didn't say it – I'm not that stupid – but he _could_ laugh, since a human being beside him did. He didn't. I stayed there looking at the 'water' (blah!) and thinking 'what swimming costume if we aren't absolutely going to swim?'

"_OOOOOOOHHHHHhhh_… Look, who's here to finally wash himself? Think this water's clear enough, baby?" Shelf sighed. He simply didn't make a notice of _those_ guys. He dropped his t-shirt on the ground and sat on it. He then shouted: "What's back again, Filth? Can't you stop harassing _younger boys_?" And the way he said: younger – _boys_. Oh crap, I could get it in time…

_"Baby_": the other gone STONE-COLD-ANGRY. And I knew it wasn't that good. So I said, "Shelf, go away." He: "_Don't call me…_" Filth: "SHELF? Shelf? Hahahahaha! Oh, guys, here's what I told you! _Shelf_, we need a cavy. We have to try some beautiful product that our – ehr – sales manager gave us to sell…." Someone behind him laughed. And they were many, many – all black dressed. _Them_. But I never saw them _armed_. Chains, steel bars, those combat boots – I felt suddenly _afraid_. Like I never felt before. Shelf said "Go away…" I lingered. I was out of my mind. "Don't act stupid, ye damn hero. Go away, you won't stop them". So I went. It was when I was far away yet that I heard him saying, clearly and calm: "But _you, _Filth, try to touch me again _that way_ and I'm gonna kill your four entire families before killing yourselves." The answer was a laughter.

One thing: when Shelf put off the shirt, I saw his chest and back were covered with scars. _Scars_, and clearly _beating_ scars. And bruises. He only wiped those lying in the face, he didn't _heal_ the wounds. So strange…

I wasn't arrived at the nearby street, when one of the fascists came to call me back. "Come, you too" He grabbed my sleeve and I followed, silent. There was no one there. Only me and him: and I remember, he telling me to get a jump in the water before – to _troll_ me, to _bully_ me – and I _did_. I was too afraid. Later, I'd had a shower at home. _Oh, crap, if I'd had a shower later._ Then he says, when I'm in the dirty, muddy, stinking 'water', and I'm swimming wearing pants and shirt – "_naked". _Don't ask questions. You're not big enough to ask him questions. And anyway, ok, he may be laughing at me – but he's not _hurting _me. Do it. Anyway. I do it. "Get out of the water" But… "GET OUT OF THE DAMN WATER!" I do. He _looks. _He _watches _me. He _laughs_. He tells me to put my clothes on again and follow him, I'll have a real jump in _his house's swimming pool_. Ooh. Crap. Wonderful. I never _saw _a swimming pool, a _real _one, I mean. We go.

At his home, I think, whatever, whoever's house this is, I never saw it. Ok, _here_, or well, _there_, he says: "Go upstairs, take a shower, put on the white robe and come down". I do. All. Right. Then I go downstairs. To the garden; where may be a swimming pool. No: they yell at me from the ground floor. "The garden is exposed; this is a covered swimming pool". Exposed to what?

I sit, with them: Shelf, _completely out of his mind._ The _"Filth"_, gone out the same, with an angry, violent, aggressive face _but wearing a smile on it_; like he was sweating, his face skin red and deadly white. Shelf is leaning with one arm to the sofa shoulder. He looks in the void, smiles with the mouth open – but showing _teeth_. They all look like animals. Then my 'officer commander' fascist says: "Here, smoke". And then I only remember things seen like that thing made me see them. _Clearly, high-lighted, bright, incredibly important_;_ preys_, and_ euphoria. _I know what I did; I know what they did to me. I know what they tried to do; it was quite – it seemed they _didn't want_, they were just _trying _themselves to know if they liked it: this may be the reason why they never did this after. To me.

Ok, I accepted my memories of it just a bit of time ago; I _re_jected these memories until now. I simply had no way to accept those _strange, strange _things, that never happened to me again. But I can tell you this: that we all knew perfectly what, a week later, was going on between the fascists and the _others_. They were just _drug dealing_. The worst thing was, that our parents told us "Avoid them, they are criminals"; or well, in fact we all _hated our parents_. This meant to us: DO IT. We just began to think: ok, that's wrong, but they are not forcing you to buy it. If you want, you go there, if you don't, you're perfectly free to avoid them. So we did. Or well, so_ they_ did.

I was already an addicted. The same afternoon of that first time that I smoked crack, I went home completely high and my parents _didn't notice it_. I had just been _fucked_ (for this is the truth), I had just smoked _crack cocaine_, and my parents simply didn't notice that I couldn't walk _straight_ –or well, I couldn't walk at all. It hurts, Jesus. I _do_ remember how many, how much and how many of them have been; but I think I can avoid talking of this. It was just – a thorough proof of my bisexuality.

The differences between me and Shelf were these: 1. I had only been fucked, and I wanted it; he'd been stuffed with crack, raped and beaten again, as I remember – 2. That was my last and only time; I don't know how many times they went catching him again - 3. I wouldn't ever see those guys again; he'd be another year at school with them.

And I notice another difference: "Filth" and Shelf's father were talking friendly some days later. "Filth" said: "Don't worry, he'll win the place. I talked with my sibling there…" Good job, father. Good job.

I heard, after, of a full complication of the thing: the _others_ stepped back and worked only with drugs, being payed in money, only; the _fascists_ stuck on this thing of "natural checking" or of the "credit card" like we called it. You could not pay? They fucked you. That was simple, enough; simple, but _someone _didn't like it. _Someone _was seen, nighttime, in the street, near Shelf's house; _someone_ was blond and log haired – all dressed in black. "Who is this? The nazi Viking?" I asked myself. The _others_, the next day, were disappeared. Evaporated. Also the blond _someone_ did, he evaporated in the summer's liquid sun. Leaving a scarless Shelf alone in a town, that he only remembered for that girl, child mate of his.

Shelf doesn't remember my face anymore – or well, the last time I saw him he didn't. It was six years ago, after he got his graduation and I lost my third job – I was addicted. I was a junkie. I never saw those _strange_ guys again, I never saw Shelf, I never saw the blond one; but I heard of strange things going on around, some strange deaths…I heard that quite all the fascists died. But I'm stuck in a hospital – a _junkie_ hospital, they're seeing if I can be healed from the addiction. I can't know, I don't know. I can't guess.

If I could just forget. Forget. Forget it all. This has been placed on the Web, Shelf. If you don't want me to put this all to the public, with names and so on, you got to do it –

Erase these things from my mind, Shelf. Like the blond one did to yours. Like he did to your scars. Like you did with your wounds. Like they did, evaporating – like you all always did it, just without a notice, a trace, a mark – without logic, so strange, like it suddenly waked up from the matter's energy: LIKE A MAGIC.

LIKE A MAGIC, SHELF.

Free me from this monkey. Free me from myself, Shelf. But don't kill me, no. I want to live – all new. Back.


End file.
